Olivia Colman To Be Crowned With BFI Fellowship

February 6, 2019 4:01pm

Atsushi Nishijima

Olivia Colman, a Best Actress Oscar and BAFTA nominee this year for Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite, will be the recipient of a BFI Fellowship at the BFI Chairman’s dinner on March 6. The award honors and celebrates Colman’s “very special contribution” to television and film, and is in recognition of her “distinctive and prodigious acting talents and the huge impact she has on audiences all over the world,” the BFI said today.

Colman responded she is “absolutely bowled over. The BFI is a wonderful organiation and that I will soon be in a Fellowship with so many of my heroes is an honor that is hard to compute. Thank you a thousand times, I really am thrilled. Thank you!”

BFI Chair Josh Berger said, “Olivia is a brilliant comic actor and one of the industry’s finest dramatic performers. Her ability to be relatable in such a diverse range of roles generates incredible warmth and admiration from audiences. The Favourite is firmly up there as one of the best films of recent years and showcases Olivia’s extraordinary and nuanced performance, which is fittingly being acknowledged by critics and audiences all over the world.”

Currently in theaters and the co-lead in Oscar nominations, The Favourite sees Colman as the playful, petulant and deeply sad Queen Anne, a role for which she has already won the Venice Volpi Cup, Golden Globe, BIFA, London Critic’s Circle and Critic’s Choice awards.

Also a BAFTA winner for her turns in TV dramas Broadchurch and Accused as well as a Golden Globe laureate for her role in The Night Manager, Colman has TV comedy credits that include Twenty Twelve, Peep Show, Rev, Flowers and Fleabag.

Most recently, she’s portrayed Madame Thénardier in BBC One’s Les Misérables and will take over the role of Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown.